I Did Tell, I Did (7 page)

It would never have occurred to me to tell a teacher at school, or a neighbour, or one of my two nans. They’d tell Mum and she would go berserk. My life wouldn’t be worth living. It would be even worse than the drama after I wrote that story about a little girl who was unwanted and unloved. I would probably be sent straight to the children’s home, and goodness knows what would happen there.

That only left Dad, but I knew he would never stand up to Mum. He was no match for her. She tormented him almost as much as she tormented me. She would constantly tell him that he was useless, and that he didn’t know anything. When she was short of money, it would always be his fault: ‘You don’t earn enough to keep us. You make it hard for me to put food on the table, you good for nothing…’ She would often tell him that the day she met him was the worst day of her life, and once she brought tears to his eyes by shouting that she should have gone when she had the chance. I had no idea what this meant—where could she have gone?—but Dad looked so sad that it stuck in my memory.

She’d set up situations just to make him look foolish, and that made me feel protective towards him. The last thing I’d want would be to get him into any more trouble by telling him my problems.

On my birthdays, we would be sitting round the table at teatime when Dad got in from work, wet and cold from riding his bike through the November chill. He was a slight man, probably a bit taller than Mum but much thinner. She’d be standing waiting for him, arms folded.

‘Where’s Cassie’s present then?’ she’d demand.

He’d look startled, having had no idea it was my birthday. Like most men, he wasn’t good at remembering dates.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the poor child’s present again? Didn’t you even get her a card?’

‘I didn’t know…’ he’d stumble, sad and embarrassed.

I tried to tell him it was OK, I didn’t mind, but Mum would continue to taunt him until he slunk off out the back door to the haven of his shed.

My brother and sisters always got great piles of presents on their birthdays but there would be nothing on mine, and Mum always blamed Dad for it. I can’t remember what age I was when it eventually occurred to me that Mum was the one who bought the others’ presents, because Dad was at work all day and had no time to get to the shops. Besides, it was Mum who held the purse strings in the household. The whole teatime scene when she blamed him was just a charade, designed to make both of us feel bad.

One year, as my birthday approached, I decided to do something about it so I earned some money running errands for a neighbour. On the day before my birthday, I bought some colouring pencils, a book and some wrapping paper and I wrapped them up as a present.

After tea, I went out to Dad’s shed and put the little parcel into his hand.

‘It’s my birthday tomorrow,’ I said quietly, ‘and I know you don’t have time to shop, so I bought these. They’re just what I want.’

Now he wouldn’t look bad in front of the family, and she wouldn’t be able to have a go at him. There was a strange look in Dad’s eyes: sad, but loving at the same time. I thought I would be sparing him from getting a row this year, but how wrong I was.

The next evening, when Dad came home from work, we were all sitting round the table as usual. Before Mum could say anything, he walked over and handed me the parcel.

‘Happy birthday, Cassie. Hope you like these,’ he said softly and we smiled a secret smile.

All eyes turned expectantly to Mum. Surely she would be pleased he had remembered? Instead, she went berserk and started shouting abuse at both of us.

‘What do you think you’re playing at, trying to make a fool out of me?’ she yelled at Dad. Then she turned to me. ‘You wicked, wicked girl. You put him up to this! How dare you!’ She grabbed me by the arm, shaking me violently. ‘Get out of my sight, I can’t bear to look at you!’

I didn’t dare to look at Dad as I turned and made my way upstairs without any tea. I could still hear her yelling at him as I closed my bedroom door and lay down on the bed. My plan for an argument-free birthday had backfired badly. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried to please her I was destined
always to get things wrong. I kept hoping that one day she would be proud of me, one day she would realise she loved me, but that day never seemed to come.

Christmas was another time when Mum made it very clear that I was at the bottom of the pecking order in our family. Every year my brother and sisters and I wrote letters to Santa Claus and sent them up the chimney—‘Write whatever you want,’ Mum would urge us—and every year my siblings would get what they had asked for and I would only get a couple of small, cheap toys. She had to get me something because both my nans would be there and they’d have asked questions if she didn’t, but it was usually just sweets or cardboard cut-out dolls or a comic, while my siblings got big presents like bicycles and rollerskates.

One year, when I was nine or ten, I asked Santa for a bicycle. Tom, Ellen and Rosie all had bicycles and Anne was still too young for one at the age of four. As we came downstairs that Christmas morning, I peeked out the kitchen door and saw two large, bicycle-shaped presents all wrapped up in Christmas paper. One was bigger than the other. My heart leapt in excitement. I knew Tom had asked for a new bike, so the bigger one must be for him while the smaller one was for me. I thought of all the things I would do on my bike: cycling round to Claire’s house, whizzing downhill with the wind in my hair. At last I was being given what I had asked for! Mum must care about me after all.

After breakfast, we went into the best room. I was so excited. We emptied our stockings first then Mum started
bringing in the bigger presents. First of all she brought in the larger bicycle-shaped present and gave it to Tom. He leapt for joy and couldn’t get the wrapping paper off fast enough. I was so happy for him, not only because I loved my brother, but also because I was anticipating my own joy in the following few minutes. Then it happened.

Mum spoke to my little sister: ‘Watch the doorway, Anne. We have a very special present for you.’

My little sister stood up and watched as Dad brought in the second bicycle-shaped present. My heart lurched as he placed it next to her. It was a bike, a too-big-for-her bike.
My
bike.

I felt heavy, devastated, heartbroken. I looked at Mum and realised she was watching me with a strange smile on her face, enjoying my disappointment. I looked away again quickly, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen, but that look stayed in my mind.

She had won again.

She really didn’t love me.

Nana B, Dad’s mum, reached out and gave me a quick hug, perhaps sensing my disappointment even though I tried not to let it show. My nans were lovely people but neither of them dared stand up to Mum, and that meant that they didn’t dare be too openly affectionate to me in front of her.

There was another Christmas when Mum lifted my hopes only to dash them again. I had asked for a life-size baby doll that I’d seen for sale in town. I only had one doll, Suzie, but I loved her and spent a lot of time bathing, dressing and pretending to feed her. Then I fell in love with the life-size doll, a boy doll, as soon as I saw it.

One of my jobs around the house was to make Mum’s bed, and the week before Christmas, as I moved her bedside table to tuck in the sheet, I spotted a box. A baby-doll-sized box. Of course I knew I shouldn’t look. But I did. I was only a little girl doing grown-up chores, and I couldn’t resist. As I lifted the lid, I could see the glowing china face and painted hair. Postwar, dolls had painted-on hair, not hair you could touch and comb like today’s dolls. He was beautiful. I wanted to lift him out of the box and hold him in my arms. I wanted to make his eyes open to see if they were blue. I wanted them to be blue. Not that that would have mattered—they could have been any colour and I’d have loved him.

I was beside myself with excitement as Christmas approached. None of the others liked dolls. My sisters were far too old and Anne was a tomboy, more interested in outdoor games. The doll had to be for me. It couldn’t be for anyone else.

Christmas morning finally came and we were all summoned to the ‘best room’. Mum brought in a large parcel for my brother first and he opened it to find a metal racing car painted in bright colours. He was thrilled with it and I was happy for him.

Then in came my dad, carrying the box. Although it was wrapped in Christmas wrapping, I knew it held the china doll. I half-stood up, ready for him to hand it to me, and then I heard Mum’s words and I froze.

‘This is your main present,’ she said to my little sister. ‘Come and see what we’ve bought you. You’ll love it.’

She glanced over at me, looking for my reaction, her eyes narrowed, as the box was placed on the floor in front of the
child who didn’t like dolls. The child who hadn’t asked for a doll.

My little sister opened the parcel and said a polite thankyou. I held my breath. Perhaps they had another baby doll. Perhaps they would bring mine in next. Perhaps…perhaps I’d got it wrong again. Perhaps I wasn’t to get one. Perhaps I was right the first time.

After all the other presents had been handed out, and my sister had tossed the baby doll aside, my dad came in holding another present.

‘This is for you, Cassie,’ he said. ‘I made it specially.’

I didn’t dare look at Mum in case she spoiled the moment. I ran over to him and took the parcel in my arms.

‘How dare you have a present for
her
!’ Mum screamed. ‘How dare you do this in secret, without my permission? I never said you could, did I?’

For the first time in my life, I ignored Mum’s angry words. I took the gift Dad was handing me and unwrapped it to find a beautiful, hand-made pink cot. A doll’s cot. A cot for Suzie. I’d asked for a cradle the Christmas before and hadn’t got it. Dad must have remembered and decided to make me one out in his shed. I thought he’d been spending a lot of time out there, and on a couple of occasions when I’d gone out to visit him I’d been disappointed that he didn’t let me in. This must be why! He’d been making me a cot. I loved it. I loved him. I stood up and thanked him, with tears in my eyes.

But before I could fetch Suzie to show her the new bed, Mum, who was outraged, lifted this beautiful cot, the cot my
Dad had spent evening after evening making. She lifted it high in the air without a thought for anyone, without even looking at it properly, and she threw it against the wall. It shattered into lots of pink splintery pieces. What was left in her hand, she hurled at me.

‘Did you really think I would let you have a present that had been made in deceit? Did you really expect me to let you have a present that you hadn’t asked for or deserved?’ Her voice was full of hate. ‘It’s shoddy, and made of painted tomato boxes. It’s shabby and cheap. And although you don’t deserve anything better, you won’t have it, I’ll make sure of that!’

I stood rooted to the spot, looking at her, then looking at Dad, and feeling numb. Did she really just do that? Was I seeing things? Did what I thought just happened, happen? Yes, it did, she had.

I must have done something very bad to deserve this mother. What had I ever done to her? Why did she hate me so much?

I would have loved that cot. The cot that my dad had worked on for weeks.The cot he made to make things better for me. But now there was no cot. Now there were broken bits of pink painted wood all over the best room floor.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

The room was silent. All you could hear were my tiny shivery sobs.

So Christmases and birthdays were times I learned to dislike, to put up with, just to get through. They never got any
better. They were the perfect chance for Mum to show me how much she disliked my very being there. How the rest of her children were loved and I wasn’t.

To get me through the bad times, I made up a little story in my head. I’d imagine it at night when I lay in bed unable to sleep, embellishing it with extra details as I went along. The story went like this.

One day there was a knock at the door of our house, the house where I lived with a mother who hated me. She called out to me to answer it. On the doorstep stood a handsome man and a beautiful lady. They were dressed really well. I imagined their clothes in detail, right down to the shoes, and the lady’s handbag.

‘We’re here because there’s been a terrible mistake,’ the man said. ‘A mistake of the gravest concern.’ His voice was gentle, well-spoken.

The woman continued, ‘When we were very young, we had a baby. A baby girl. Because of our ages, we were forced to give her away. We had no choice. But now we have changed our minds and want her back. We’ve come to put the mistake right and take the little girl home with us.’

‘What age are you?’ the man asked. ‘And what’s your name?’

I answered their questions and they looked at each other. ‘It’s you, our beloved baby. We’ve missed you so much. Will you come home with us?’

I was loved. I was wanted. I would belong. They took me home and from then on I was the happiest child alive.

W
hen I was ten years old and at home in bed one day with Asian flu, Mum left me in the house on my own and went out with Ellen and Rosie. They didn’t tell me where they were going but they locked the door behind them, so at least I didn’t have to worry about Uncle Bill turning up.

When Mum got back, she came upstairs holding a little bundle of black fur.

‘This is for you,’ she said. ‘A present.’

I didn’t believe her. It had to be a trick. Why would Mum buy me a present? I looked more closely and saw that it was a tiny black puppy with its pink tongue hanging out. He was looking up at me trustingly.

I stretched out my hands. ‘Can I hold him?’

Mum pulled him away. ‘Not right now. You have to learn how to take care of him first.’

He was a black poodle puppy, a toy dog who would never grow very big, and Mum called him Bobby. He was the most
adorable dog I’d ever seen and I was quickly smitten. But I soon realised that the only reason why Mum said Bobby was mine was because she wanted me to be responsible for walking him, feeding him, toilet-training him, and looking after any aspects of his care that constituted chores, so that she could enjoy the fun bits of pet ownership, such as sitting with him on her knee, stroking him and feeding him titbits when she felt like it. The ‘ownership’ was selective, depending on whether anything needed to be done at the time. He was most definitely my dog whenever a mess needed to be cleared up.